Rail Design
November 18, 2020

Success Story | Innovative Application of Digital Engineering Technology in Shaoxing Rail and Transit Construction

Bentley Expert

Shaoxing, Zhejiang, China

Establishing a City Metro System

Shaoxing Urban Rail Transit Line 1 is one of the backbone lines in the city’s network initiative to establish an integrated transportation system connecting with Huangzhou and Metro Line 5 via the Haungzhou-Shaoxing Intercity Railway. The CNY 24 billion metro line is the largest infrastructure project in the history of Shaoxing, with a total length of 34.1 kilometers and including 24 stations, 25 sections, a depot, a car park, two main substations, and a control center. The project presented a confined sub-surface envelope with complex environmental conditions, integration issues connecting with existing infrastructure assets, and constraints to preserve cultural and historic relics amid the urban modernization efforts. POWERCHINA Huadong Engineering Corporation (HDEC) was hired to digitally engineer the entire line, providing project management, overall consultation, survey, design, and construction works, and handover to operations and maintenance.

Maximizing Data Potential by Digitalizing Workflows

Faced with complex hydrogeological challenges, site constraints, and traffic organization issues, compounded by a tight timeline and coordination difficulties with numerous technical interfaces among the multiple disciplines and city governmental departments, HDEC realized that they needed a more streamlined approach, compared to traditional IT consulting processes. They sought to maximize data potential and adopt advanced digital workflows by establishing an urban rail and transit engineering data center and collaborative construction management platform to digitalize all assets and processes throughout the project lifecycle. To achieve this goal—as well as improve efficiency, quality, and decision making—they needed to integrate BIM and digital twin technology.

Image: Courtesy of POWERCHINA Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited

Leveraging Open Applications

HDEC leveraged Bentley’s open, collaborative design applications with iTwin technology to digitalize workflows and establish a digital twin. Using aerial photography and ContextCapture, they created a 3D reality mesh that truly reflected the existing conditions of the city’s landscape, architecture, and roadways. They developed their own 3D geology software based on Bentley technology and used it in conjunction with OpenRoads Designer to create an integrated BIM model of the railway route. Using Bentley’s iModel technology, they integrated BIM models and digital assets from the numerous disciplines and stakeholders, including data generated by third-party software. Bentley’s iTwin technology allowed HDEC’s digital twin to consume static and dynamic data in its digital construction management platform.

Image: Courtesy of POWERCHINA Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited

Driving Smart Operations

Integrating innovative reality and BIM modeling technologies saved 800 hours of data collection time equivalent to CNY 3 million in costs, as well as reduced the impact of subway construction on Shaoxing citizens’ everyday lives. Adopting advanced digital workflows in an open connected data environment facilitated synergetic design, shortening the design cycle by 20% and saving CNY 12 million in design costs. By establishing a digital twin, HDEC monitored construction in real-time, resolving more than 100 potential issues, and reduced construction costs by 5%. They realized the full potential of their multi-sourced data to support improved decision-making and have laid the foundation for using the railway digital twin throughout operations and maintenance, driving smart subway management.

Watch the Project Summary

Facts

Shaoxing Urban Rail Line 1 is the city’s largest infrastructure project set to establish the cultural city as a modern metropolitan area.
HDEC was retained to digitally engineer the entire 34.1-kilometer line amid complex geological conditions, site constraints, and coordination challenges.
Leveraging Bentley applications, they developed BIM technology that streamlined workflows to shorten the design cycle and save CNY 12 million in design costs.
ProjectWise provided the collaborative digital platform to manage and coordinate more than 20 participating units and 100 project participants.

“To improve the information and digital management for this project, we introduced Bentley’s 3D [design, engineering, and collaboration] platform and built an engineering data center throughout the full lifecycle of this project.”